


Won't Stop Til I Get Where You Are

by rabbitxheart



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Beverly Marsh & Richie Tozier Are Best Friends, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, First Kiss, Fix-It, Getting Together, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mentioned Maturin | The Turtle, Minor Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Minor Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon, Minor Patricia Blum Uris/Stanley Uris, Sharing Clothes, Slow Burn, Stanley Uris Lives, The Rituals Are Intricate, because they deserve it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:33:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21993778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rabbitxheart/pseuds/rabbitxheart
Summary: It’s ridiculous, he knows. But the sheets smell like Eddie too and part of him wants to ask Bev to stand up again, buy him a few more minutes of surrounding himself with his scent, something to relearn, get to know. Something to cling to and wrap around himself when there’s nothing else left, something good to keep.-The Losers mourn their losses, the Losers worry about those that survived, and in Derry even miracles are possible, if you just believe hard enough.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 10
Kudos: 69





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AggressivelyBisexual](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AggressivelyBisexual/gifts).



> Watch me as I Ritual of Chüd Stephen King in a McDonald's parking lot to give my boys a good ending.
> 
> For Kels, for joining me in most if not all of my obsessions. I love you tons.

The bed shifts a little as Bev sits down next to him where he’s curled up, placing her hand between his shoulder blades, her arm resting over his side. He’s not hyperventilating anymore, at least, so there’s that, he supposes. Newly showered and clothes changed and the old, disgusting ones discarded, yet they’re bundled up in the bottom of his bag along with his broken glasses. Still wet, still bloody. 

It feels sacrilegious somehow, the thought of throwing them away. 

He tugs at the shirt he stole from Eddie’s luggage, buries his nose in the hoodie of it where he’s tugged it under his face. It doesn’t smell exactly like he remembered the Eddie of his youth, but it does smell like him, and that’s all that matters now. 

It’s ridiculous, he knows. But the sheets smell like Eddie too and part of him wants to ask Bev to stand up again, buy him a few more minutes of surrounding himself with his scent, something to relearn, get to know. Something to cling to and wrap around himself when there’s nothing else left, something good to keep.

“Do you-” He says, his voice cracking. His eyes are more swollen than they’ve ever been, and he sounds as wrecked as he feels. “What did you see, in there? I know you saw Stan, but-”

Her hand stills momentarily, then resumes stroking his back.

“Us. Dead. So many possible ways, I couldn’t have guessed which-” She begins, and it doesn’t even occur to him at first that she’s defending herself. 

“Bev, wait. I don’t blame you,” he says, and he can tell she knows he’s honest because she relaxes considerably. Besides, she wasn’t the one who stepped into the fucking deadlights like an idiot. “I’m just trying to understand.”

Bev pauses to think. He looks up at her for the first time since she came in.

She looks… Tired. Like she hasn’t slept well in decades, like there has been no rest to be had at all. And maybe that’s exactly what this is.

“It’s just pieces. Flashes. Sometimes we got out, sometimes we didn’t.” She sighs. “Stan never did. But it was always his terms. Pennywise never laid a hand on him again.”

“But one of yours  _ happened _ .” He sees the cogs turn, almost hears the bell ding as she hones in on him.

“What did you see, Richie?”

Richie closes his eyes, inhales Eddie on the sheets. Feels the weight of his arm slung across Richie’s bare waist under warm covers, his head on Eddie’s shoulder on a sofa somewhere, the others speaking around them. Hears his voice in the morning and his singing from the kitchen and even him yelling about Richie’s travel bag, still on the floor after his last gig out of town weeks ago, all things that Richie had fresh in his memory when he came to, Eddie over him, thinking  _ I’ve seen the future, too _ . Only now he’s beginning to understand it was Pennywise baiting him with something he’ll never get to have.

There’s no arm around him, no surprisingly muscular shoulder to lean against. Nobody being snarky at him about bags or dishes or what to watch on Netflix. No soft snoring in his ears at night. Only Bev’s concerned presence and her hand on his back. It feels too small, too slight. 

Richie remembers Eddie’s hand in his as children, holding his last night. Just hours ago, pressing against the w-

“Not this,” he says, and waits for sleep to claim him.

Or Pennywise. Whatever comes first, really. He’ll take it.

Distantly he feels a shift, feels himself get tucked close to something strong and safe as he’s being lifted. It’s not an outer-body experience really, more alike waking up ever so slightly as someone moves next to you. He wonders briefly if it’s his dad, fragments of memories of being carried from the car and into the warmth of the house and the safety of his bed. But the familiar scent- so far away for decades now, yet somehow in his memory like it was yesterday, isn’t there. His nose is stuffy and he can’t smell much at all, but he can tell something’s different. Other.

His mouth tastes  _ awful _ .

He’s sat down gently, leaned into something soft and warm, cool fingers pressing against his forehead, brushing along his cheek. Fixes his shirt where it has ridden up a little. Then, the presence is gone, and he can feel whatever he’s leaned into begin moving. Only then does he think to look around.

“Where am I?” He mumbles, unable to make anything out in the dark. It feels like he’s in a cave, or a smaller recess of one, being rocked from side to side gently, except it’s far warmer and far cozier than any recess would ever be.

“Quite frankly, I’m not sure,” the voice says, and Eddie scrambles to his feet, only to hit his head on the roof of whatever the hell he’s in and fall back on his ass. The voice chuckles fondly, and a strange calm comes over him. It should frighten him, but it doesn’t. “I’m not It. I helped Bill decades ago. You as well I suppose, but we never spoke.”

It feels familiar. True. The idea that something were to exist to balance out what happened in Derry seems  _ logical _ , even in the midst of so many unbelievable things. 

The chamber continues to shift, and Eddie leans back against the wall of it. It feels stable enough though, warm and strangely welcoming unlike the stone of the lair, and it occurs to him-

“Is Pennywise dead?”

“It is,” the voice says proudly. “You all did good.” 

He knows the voice is genuine. Can feel it in his bones, echoing throughout his being. But the unease in his gut remains.

“Did they all make it?” He asks then, bracing for what the answer might be. Last he saw they were all alive, but...

“They did,” the voice says again, and Eddie closes his eyes, exhales heavily as he rests his head back.

“Thank fuck.” He rubs a hand down his face. “I told them, I told them I was the weakest link. I-”

The voice interrupts him.

“Do you remember what It offered you, if you’d left Bill and forgotten about it?”

Flashes of an offer of long life, dying happy and unknowing.

Richie taking a baseball bat to the face of a demon clown.

The undeniable feeling that with the Losers by his side, they were all invincible, even in the face of something this evil.

“I do.”

“That’s how It worked, making bargains for forgetfulness. Always did. It would have worked this time, too, if things hadn’t changed.”

“What changed?” They slow, and the memories come flooding, not unlike the call from Mike. Thankfully someone else is driving this time around when the heaviest part hits him.

“Wait.” Eddie reaches down and feels the torn edges of his shirt. Beyond that, smooth flesh. Even smoother than it used to be, the only scars left those only an upbringing with Munchausen’s by proxy can give you. “The fucking clown shishkebob’ed me. I  _ died _ .”

“You died.”

“I died,” he says, barely a whisper. Eddie heaves a sigh. Thinks about the books he’d checked out from the library that he won’t get to read, and while he’s read enough about near-death experiences to know your mind goes weird places in times like these, Neil Gaiman wasn’t what he pictured for himself. Yet here he is, wondering who the hell names someone  _ Door _ . “So.” He feels wobbly, even sitting down, clutching the jacket in his hands like it’ll keep him steady. “What now?”

“You helped me. So I’ll help you. A little miracle here and there.” There’s a shift in how they lean, and Eddie can tell they’re moving upward. “I’m bringing you back to them.”

He closes his eyes. Feels the air move across his skin despite the blood and the dirt, feels the stressed beat of his heart and hears the blood in his ears. 

“That’s a lot of miracle,” Eddie says.

“There was a lot of wishing,” it says, the shrug audible. “Praying, even.”

The rumbling comes to an abrupt end and Eddie feels the scent of fresh air surrounding them before he can ask what he means. 

“You can come out, now.”

He crawls out, the gravel and broken up road underneath his palms as he hits solid ground almost face first, stumbling onto his legs like a newborn deer.

The marks in the dirt around them, the collapsed hole they passed through, all of them nearly five times bigger than what’s in front of him.

“You’re a  _ turtle _ ,” Eddie exclaims, because sure as fuck. That’s a turtle.

“Yes. No. Both.” The turtle’s face moves, he can tell, but the voice he hears is far too booming for this creature, bigger than usual as it may be.

“But-” Eddie protests. It just looks at him, tilts its head. “Sure,” he says, shrugging in defeat. “None of this makes any sense. Why the fuck not. Pennywise is dead, I’m alive. You’re a turtle and not a turtle.”

“He’s learning!” It chuckles. 

“I feel like I’ve learned fuck all,” he admits, hands on his hips. 

“You can think of me as a turtle if it helps. I’ve been called worse,” it says, amused.

Something moves in the corner of his eye and he sees the lights of the townhouse, strong in the dark of the night. Ben’s room is lit, then darkened once again before he can see anyone. Something stirs in him, anxiously waiting to get to go inside, to make sure they’re all there, making him unable to stand still. 

“Are they all okay?” He asks, eyes still not tearing away from the windows.

“They’re alive and healing at least,” the turtle responds. 

“But not okay,” Eddie nods, looking to the townhouse again. “That makes sense.”

“All of the Losers will be, in time.”

“Not all of us,” Eddie corrects him before he can stop himself. “Sorry, I just-”

Something gentle washes over Eddie, an emotion he knows very well isn’t his, like an equal to but stronger than the sense of dread Neibolt always seemed to radiate, warm and reassuring as the turtle pauses his shuffling. 

It’s fond, he realizes. The turtle is  _ fond of him _ . 

“Patricia has always believed in miracles.” The turtle’s face doesn’t shift at all, but Eddie can still tell it’s smiling somehow. “Who am I to disappoint?”

Eddie lets out a wet exhale. How has he not noticed he’s crying?

“Oh, thank fuck,” he says, leaning on his knees. The turtle looks on, head tilted. Concern, not curiosity, something almost instinctive in him provides. “Georgie?”

“The Deadlights...” It trails off, and Eddie nods. He never saw them, but he saw enough. Understood enough. Some things you just can’t come back from.

“How can I possibly thank you for all of this?”

“Your firstborn,” the turtle says calmly.

“I-” Eddie staggers. “My what?”

“I’m  _ joking _ ,” it chuckles. “I couldn’t fight It myself. You did. There are no catches to this.”

“Okay,” Eddie says, lost for words yet again, watching as it begins to burrow again.

“You’ve just re-discovered how brave you really are, Eddie. Don’t stop now,” it says. “Tell Mike and Bill Maturin said thank you,” he adds, then turns away. 

“M-” Eddie flails as the turtle,  _ the turtle _ , _ THE  _ fucking turtle, slips back underground. “Hey, I remember you!” He yells, hoping it hears him even with its head underground. When it-  _ Maturin _ , shows no sign of slowing down, Eddie throws his hands in the air. “Couldn’t have  _ led  _ with that?” He sighs.

“E-Eddie?” 

He turns, and for a brief moment, all they do is stare at eachother. Bill steps in front of Mike, shielding him, and Eddie can’t even be offended. He knows what this must look like, knows what they must fear.

“H-how?” Bill just barely gets out, gaping.

“Turtle- I. Maturin,” Eddie says incredulously and points to the giant hole in the road, fully expecting them to take up arms in doubt. Instead what he gets is realization dawning on Bill’s face, then on Mike’s as Bill slaps his chest half-heartedly, still staring at Eddie.

“Maturin!” Bill yells with a grin, then takes off toward Eddie. Bracing for a tackle, what he gets instead is gentle hands pulling him into a hug, so warm against the cool air Eddie realizes his clothes are still dirty and torn. 

“I’m really dirty still, you guys,” Eddie says, but the waver in his voice betrays him.

“Yeah, it’s you alright,” Mike says with a fond smile as he wraps around the both of them tightly, strong and even warmer. He rubs his palms up and down Eddie’s arms, gently assessing the state he’s in. “Hospital?”

Three days ago, Eddie probably would have gone. Hell, he’d probably ask Maturin to take him there first. Now he just shakes his head, buries his face in Bill’s shoulder.

“Let’s g-get you a shower and some food, then.”

Eddie nods, letting himself be led toward the warmth of the townhouse.


	2. Chapter 2

The lobby of the townhouse has never seemed so warm and welcoming. If it’s the lack of evil clowns or if it’s the way he’s tired to the bone, he’s not sure. Their things are still strewn everywhere, almost like they brought their stuff down to avoid having to leave eachother for even a moment, pizza cartons and drinks on the tables, yet there’s no one there.

“Where are the others?” He asks, almost missing the glance Bill shoots Mike. 

“They, uh.”

“So. Listen,” Mike begins, taking a centering breath. “We-”

There’s a soft noise from upstairs as a door is shut and the sound of Bev heaving a deep sigh. Her shoulders slump as she pauses, her hands still resting against the door, and Eddie can tell how exhausted she is. She leans forward and they watch in silence as she wipes her eyes, turning around.

“He’s  _ finally  _ asleep. Ben just-” She cuts herself off, looking down at them from the top of the stairs.

“Hi,” he says, unsure what else to say. Bev blinks, tilting her head as she takes him in. 

She begins walking down, a calm and steady eye of the storm around him, just like she’s always been, until she reaches him. Reaches  _ for  _ him. She pulls him in without a moment’s hesitation, her tears beginning again the instant he wraps his arms around her. 

“He was right,” she whispers, and Eddie wants to ask, but files it away. Instead he lets himself be held, relaxes into the oddly familiar feeling of her being a little taller, standing on the stairs as she is, Mike’s hand on his shoulder like he still can’t believe Eddie’s there.

“Are you alright?” She asks, pulling back to look at him.

“Not a scratch, just exhausted,” he confirms, then looks past her, thinking a little further. “Are they in my room?” 

“They are, but. Eds.” She tugs a little at his shirt to stop him from passing her. “I think I need to tell them first. Richie’s… He’s not doing great.”

“Is he hurt? Maturin said you got out okay?” Eddie frowns. Recognition flickers across her face at the mention of Maturin.

“He’s sad,” she says, and  _ oh _ . Eddie glances back at the table of takeout, at how five left out of seven didn’t want leave eachother alone. “We just have to do this gently.”

“Okay,” he says again, nodding this time.

The door to his room slams open so hard it makes Eddie and Bev both jump, Ben's pleading voice heard from inside.

“Richie, wait, I don’t think it’s-”

Richie appears at the top of the stairs. Ben is right behind him, the worry clear on his face swiftly changed to shock. 

His glasses are different, but still similar enough that it doesn’t throw him off. What does throw him off is the hoodie- the cotton worn and soft, just the right size for Richie. Myra would always wonder why he’d bought it so big and Eddie never could pinpoint why it was such a comfort to wear something with sleeves so long he had to fold them up, that somewhere in the back of his mind it meant safety and warmth. It starts making a bit more sense in a way Eddie doesn’t know what to do with, seeing it fit Richie so well.

“Bev?” He says, not once taking his eyes off of Eddie. His throat tightens at the doubt and fear so obvious in Richie’s voice.

“It’s him, honey,” she says, nodding. She gives Eddie a little push, getting him up the first steps to the landing. “It’s him,” she repeats, this time aimed at Ben who looks half ready to fight, half ready to give up. Ben looks to Eddie, then to Richie, then back to Bev, and reaches out for the railing as he starts to cry, the hand over his mouth muffling the sound. 

Richie begins making his way down the stairs, sock clad feet almost silent against the carpet. Even in his peripheral Eddie can see his hand shake where it glides along the wood of the railing. Eddie doesn’t move, barely breathes, not even when Richie stands in front of him on the landing, close enough to touch. Taking a shaky breath Richie reaches out, brushes a hand over the round of Eddie’s shoulder, up over his neck to a tiny, tiny scar just below and behind his ear, hidden just inside his hairline. He does his best not to lean into it, not to spook him, and it’s  _ torture _ .

“You threw a snowball mostly made of ice at me. You cried more than I did,” Eddie says almost before the memory has come back to him entirely, Richie’s cold hands pressing a glove to the wound to stop the bleeding, much like he did just hours before. A red thread, it seems. “I hid the gloves from my ma in my closet and when I found them I couldn’t remember whose they were, just that they were important. They’re still in a box in my attic in New York.”

“Fuck, Eds,” Richie says and pulls him in by the neck, and something stirs in Eddie, a moment of presque vu when Richie buries his nose in Eddie’s neck. He’s breathing so fast and so harshly Eddie can’t tell if he’s breathing him in or hyperventilating, so he simply strokes a calming pattern against Richie’s back, tracing up and down his shuddering back. When Richie’s legs give out, Eddie’s already holding him tight, catching him easily.

“I’ve got you,” Eddie tells him, steadily lowering them both to the floor. Richie’s hands are clinging to him like Eddie’s gonna pull away, constantly dragging him closer. They sink into a pile of limbs, Eddie somehow rearranging them so he’s up against the bannister, Richie tucked against him sideways, shaking like a leaf. “I’ve got you,” he repeats. 

Someone, Mike, he thinks, is smart enough to remove Richie’s glasses before they break in all the commotion.

So many times before it was Richie guiding him like this, a safe harbor through the worst of it as panic tore through his body like an F5 tornado. He almost instinctively wants to ask Richie what to say, what to do.

“You’re so much better than me at this,” Eddie settles for. 

“Don’t care,” Richie mumbles into his collarbone. “You’re alive.”

And that,  _ that’s _ what breaks Eddie as well. Cracks something open in him that Eddie didn’t know was walled off, suddenly shattered like it was nothing but egg shell. When Richie’s hand goes up the back of his shirt to find whole skin, Eddie doesn’t stop him. Hesitant fingers turn into a splayed palm, warm and insistent, a grounding pressure against his spine. 

“Fuck,” he hiccups, burying his face in Richie’s hair. “I’m alive.”

Bev sits down next to him, pulling at Ben until he’s leaning back against her chest, her arms around him. To Eddie’s right, Bill sits down close enough to place a hand on Richie’s knee, leaving space for Mike. 

Eddie inhales, breathes them all in. 

He exhales, maybe for the first time in 27 years.

“I’m alive.”

No shower has ever felt so good. Much like the atmosphere of the inn, it’s like the entire experience has been elevated. It’s as if he didn’t get stabbed last time he was here. 

Granted, divine intervention left him lacking cricks in his neck and joint aches he’s had for decades, he’s finally getting all the filth off of his body, and there’s a reheated meal waiting for him downstairs when he’s done. 

He finds Richie in the room when he’s squeaky clean, cross legged at the foot of the bed and so clearly exhausted Eddie almost wants to make him go to bed, but he knows from the haunted look on Richie’s face that he wouldn’t stay for long.

“Sorry I took your clothes,” Richie says, staring at Eddie’s feet as he moves across the carpet. 

“It’s alright,” Eddie says, because it is. Richie doesn’t move, doesn’t speak, simply sits there with him while he gets ready. 

“Did Maturin say why?” Bill asks later, all of them gathered downstairs again. 

“I don’t understand most of it and he honestly seemed to want it that way,” Eddie says, careful not to jostle Richie where he’s fallen asleep against his shoulder. “He-” He cuts himself off, reminds himself to call and make sure the turtle gave Patty what he promised before he tells anyone else. Let the sorrow be his alone if it was a lie. Let the others take whatever happiness they can from the rest of this clusterfuck. “He said he was paying us back for what he couldn’t do himself.”

Eddie yawns, and it spreads like wildfire.

“We really should get some sleep.” He shrugs his shoulder a little, just enough to wake Richie up. He looks up at him, eyes red and barely awake, still clinging to Eddie’s left arm. 

It’s anchoring, somehow. Calming.

“Sleep?”

Richie just nods, and they all file upstairs, drained.

“Eddie, one sec,” Ben says, stopping him with a nudge as Richie walks toward Eddie’s door almost on autopilot. He stops as well, turns in the door. 

“I’ll be right in,” Eddie says, seeing the clear hesitation on Richie’s face. “You can leave the door open.”

Almost more jarring than the tears and the looks he’s been sending Eddie’s way all night is how Richie simply nods and complies, silent all the while.

“I-” Eddie begins. “I’ve never seen him like this.”

“We were going to take turns to stay with him,” Ben says quietly when Richie’s out of earshot. “You probably need the rest, you could take Bev’s room if you wanted.”

He almost asks where she’d sleep, but something tells him her bags have already been moved into Ben’s room.

“I have a feeling he’ll come to mine anyway if I’m not here when he wakes up,” he says, glancing at the bathroom door that Richie hasn’t closed either, still peeking out every few seconds or so like he doesn’t fully believe Eddie’s gonna be out there when he’s done brushing his teeth. “I don’t want to leave him,” he admits.

“Your d-” Ben cuts off. “This hit him hard.”

“Rich, Bill and I found missing posters of him when we went into Neibolt the first time. He was..” He trails off, shaking his head. Remembers the desperation in Richie’s voice and in Richie’s face, so far removed from the Richie he knew. Still knows. “I thought he was okay until he really, really wasn’t.”

Ben takes a breath, like he’s about to speak, then thinks better of it.

“What?”

“I love you very much. I don’t think I said that.”

Eddie chuckles.

“It was always implied with you. You singlehandedly built us a fucking clubhouse. I love you, too,” he says, and it comes easier than it ever has in decades. “It’s so odd. I love all of you so much, it feels like I knew that love was there even when I didn’t know you were. Just out of reach.”

“Yeah,” Ben says, patting his shoulder. 

“See you in the morning,” Eddie says, backing into the room.

“We will,” Ben says, grinning from ear to ear as he walks down the hall.

It’s strangely like when they were kids, this. Even if the bed is bigger and they’re older, so much of it remains the same. Richie takes the provided pillow, flops onto his side like he’s lost most of the use of his limbs and sticks his feet out of the covers like he’s never fought a child-eating clown before. Eddie brought his own pillow, pulls the covers up to his armpits and settles down on his back, the ends of the covers neatly tucked under his feet.

_ “You sleep like Dracula,” _ Richie said, once, making fangs and pretending to bite after him. Now he just sinks into the bed, exhaustion taking what it’s due. 

“Can you-” Richie starts, but cuts himself off just as quick. Eddie hums, turning a little. “Nevermind.”

“Can I what?” Eddie says

“Can you tell me something?”

“Tell you what?”

“I don’t know. Anything. Tell me about your hobbies. Favorite show. Your job. ”

“The one invented before fun?” Richie cracks a smile at this. It’s small, but there, and Eddie smiles back despite trying to bite it back. “Oh, now he wants to listen.”

“I just wanna hear you talk, man,” he says softly, and Eddie doesn’t have to ask to know what the silence reminds Richie of.

He fights it, Eddie can tell. But Richie falls asleep as Eddie tells him the plot of some English drama he watched just last week, and his soft snoring slowly rocks him toward sleep, too.

There’s a knock on the door, just barely audible, and Mike pokes his head in.

“Can we sleep on your floor?” He whispers, looking at Richie’s sleeping form.

“Something wrong?” 

“Just doesn’t feel right, being down the hall.”

“Sure. Just don’t wake Richie,” he nods, and Mike disappears again, only to reappear seconds later, carrying pillows and blankets. Eddie guesses he shouldn’t be surprised when Bill is right behind, the two of them somehow getting a mattress into the room almost noiselessly.

They’ve barely laid down before Ben and Bev come carrying another, a soft smile on Ben’s face as he reaches out to give Eddie’s hand a little squeeze before he lays down. This time Richie does wake up.

“Wha-” Richie leans up on his elbows, looks around the room. “Oh.”

“Sleep,” Eddie mumbles as quietly as he can, tugging at Richie’s worn sleep shirt until he’s lying down again, then pulls the cover back up over him, tucking him in. Richie goes without a fight, only shuffles closer until their knees touch through the covers before drifting off again.


End file.
